Letter and memorandum to the Clerk of
the Committee from Jeffrey Gazzard, Board Member, Aviation Environment
Federation
AEF RESPONSE TO
THE PRE-BUDGET
INQUIRY 2003
I enclose our response to the above Inquiry
(please see memorandum below). We are still very concerned that
the Department's and Government's collective mindset is such that
the forecast growth outlined in the consultation studies and confirmed
in the White Paper, and the claimed economic benefits expansion
on this scale might bring, have dominated the policy development
process.
This is best exemplified by the "maximise
the economic benefits whilst minimizing/mitigating the environmental
impacts" mantra that pervades the "Future of Air Transport"
White Paper. This not a sound basis for protecting people and
the environment from the negative impacts of air transport.
We believe that air transport growth should
be constrained within acceptable environmental limits and we attempted
to set out what these might be and how they might be achieved
in our submission to the Department for Transport during the consultation
process. We do not believe that the growing environmental impacts
outlined within the White Paper, which arise from meeting anticipated
demand, can ever be justified against other social, economic and
environmental factors. We are profoundly concerned that the Government
seeks to do this.
If the air transport growth rate to 2030 was
reduced by implementing in full the range of methods we put forward
to control and reduce the sector's environmental impacts, including
demand management through taxation in one form or another, then
the increased tax take to the Treasury would create significant
employment elsewhere in the economy. Any disposable income not
spent on air travel would be re-allocated and spent throughout
the economy, also sustaining and creating jobs.
Halving the forecast growth rate would also,
in our view, increase the profitability of airlines, a key area
in which they need plenty of help.
We are very concerned that the Department is
dismissive of the views of the Royal Commission on Environmental
Pollution and the Sustainable Development Commission, amongst
others. We fully support the views and conclusions that both these
groups have reached in their submissions to the policy development
process and would ask for more serious reflection and consideration
to be given by the Department to both these bodies, as befits
their independent expert advisory status to Government.
Despite the issues being raised and commented
upon in Chapter 3 of the White Paper, there is a worrying lack
of any international context or relative performance overview
as to whether other sectors would be able to deliver savings that
might be allocated/purchased by the air transport industry and
how this fits into our Kyoto commitments, let alone the further
RCEP and Government identified 60% cuts necessary as we move towards
a future low carbon economy. We would ask for the Committee to
urge both the Department for Transport, working with DEFRA, to
urgently produce such a contextual study by the Summer 2004.
January 2004
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